


you and me tonight, baby we’re just like animals

by happycakeycake



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Animal Transformation, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Halloween, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Insecurity, M/M, Magic, Self Confidence Issues, but don't worry, it's a budding romance, more like magical shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-05 19:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16373741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycakeycake/pseuds/happycakeycake
Summary: Being Minhyuk’s best friend and all, Jooheon should know at this point to never trust anything that spouts out of his fast-talking mouth.Of course, that means getting drunk during the worst holiday possible at Minhyuk’s terrible Halloween party and then passing out from said mystery drink - oh and did he mention, his boyfriend is now a furry, twitching rabbit?Halloween is theworst.





	you and me tonight, baby we’re just like animals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ReeLeeV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReeLeeV/gifts).



> hello, I just had to fill the third prompt you submitted because it was so interesting! I’ve never seen the episode of buffy you mentioned, but the concept was definitely something i wanted to play around with. Plus with the addition of wonheon, I decided I had to try my hand at a story. There’s a few changes I made to your original prompt, but I still hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!! Thank you again for your awesome prompt!

Lee Jooheon is not a fan of Halloween.

But Lee Hoseok, a loving, kind, adoringly endearing boyfriend, is an avid fan of all variations of an emotional Jooheon. Turned on, flustered, scared, whiny - check, check, and check. You could name it all, and Hoseok would still be left listing more.  

And so it happens, it’s barely the second week of October that Hoseok worms his way onto Jooheon’s lap, head pillowed against solid thighs and the hard edge of his laptop digging into the soft spot of the younger man’s stomach.

Jooheon peers down, past the scrawling lines of his textbook, and his heart jumps at the sight of Hoseok laid against him.  

It’s been three months, two weeks, four days, seven hours, and currently a passing 36 minutes - but it always seems too good to ever be true. Jooheon fumbles with the sleeves of his hoodie, folding his fingers over the well-worn hems to feel the reassuring touch of cotton, to trace the familiar tears and loose strings, instead of the casual line of Hoseok’s pink smile.

And so Hoseok smiles bigger, brighter, showing off more perfect, gleaming teeth. His own neck is warm and red against the soft pillow of Jooheon’s thighs, but he likes that feeling, that kind of shy, unexpected excitement. The feeling of being with Jooheon is like that, always, forever, and more beautiful than any of his impossible dreams.

But, Hoseok learns that he likes to ask for more, that he even wants to ask for too much at terrible, quiet times, past midnight, into the early mornings where he can hear his every thought pounding in time with his heartbeat, loud and clear.

Today, he props the screen of his laptop open by the edge of his chin and turns his selfish hope up to Jooheon with wide, innocent eyes. There’s an Amazon web-page opened to a haphazard search of “costumes” and “animal onesies.” Hoseok’s cursor hovers over a bright photo in the center of the screen, flickering back and forth over a stock model posing in lurid yellow and black stripes.

Jooheon only stares, mute, as that little buzzing cursor wanders to the cart icon and double-clicks with a gleeful tap. The wandering arrow continues its course, finding its second target in a garish pink bunny costume - _click, click_ , and done.

“So-” Hoseok dares to tilt back, resting his head on the crook of Jooheon’s arm. Speechless, the younger man cradles him close anyway.

There’s a funny light to Hoseok’s stare. It twinkles like a star, dancing bright on its own stage without a care for the audience. Jooheon, unbidden, watches it glow brighter, grow fuzzier around the edges.

“Spend Halloween with me?”

The erratic little star does a wild cartwheel of pure, unrestrained joy.

/

“Of course I said yes,” Jooheon hisses, jerking the top of his scarf over his mouth. The wind rushes by, razor-sharp and raw, and steals his muffled words away along with a few dry leaves.

Static crackles over the line. “I mean-” Minhyuk’s voice fazes out again, tuning along a humming frequency. Jooheon shifts his bag across his shoulder, pulling the phone closer with an awkward jerk of his chin.

“-I would have to say I had my doubts,” Minhyuk announces, back on a steady signal. The sound of his words are slightly too pitched and absolutely unapologetic.

Jooheon rolls his eyes. It would have been better if the line had just cut off- or better if he hadn’t called in the first place. Minhyuk’s obnoxious laughter crackles through the speaker anyway.

“And why not?” Jooheon asks, rising to the bait. It’s just like his friend to always tease in such an innocent, mean-spirited way. Admittedly, this time it’s gotten more to him than it ever could before.

“Well, you and Hoseok,” Minhyuk pauses, a moment of silence before something resembling the stiff rustle of a paper bag sounds, “how long has it been - three months? And yet you still treat your relationship with him like something that could fall apart any day. Explain _that_ Lee.”

 _Because it could_ \- Jooheon bites at his cheek, bitter words hurting even more. “I’ve got insecurities like any living breathing human alright, Mr. I’m-single-and satisfied-with-everything-about-my-life.”

The clang of thin metal travels from a distant kitchen, piercing through Jooheon’s ears with a dissonant echo. “Don’t make excuses about your problems with the lack of my own. Besides,” the hesitant sputter-sputter of a stove clicks, erratic, before settling into a hum, “your relationship with Hoseok should be the last thing that’s a problem in your life right now.”

“It’s not a problem.” _Not in that way at least_ , Jooheon reminds himself. The idea of Hoseok, loving, tender, genuine Hoseok who would run the ten miles between their dorms just to make him ramyun on bad days being anything close to a problem lodges Jooheon’s heart in his throat in a tight chokehold.

“Then what?” Minhyuk pushes, unrelenting.

“It’s...it’s-” Jooheon presses his lips together, eyes wandering as he tries to pin down emotions into words. He pauses on a couple across the street, passing by in the opposite direction.

There’s a quiet smile on the girl’s face as she leans into her partner. In return, he’s looking down at her with the same indescribable tenderness. It’s everywhere that Jooheon can see - the loose way that their fingers seem to find each other, the crease of her mouth, the deep lines branching from his eyes. She reaches up and brushes a hand through the small hairs at his nape, no doubt in need of a cut.

Jooheon, gaze fixed, touches his own recently shaven undercut. He likes the feeling of it, the short bristles under his nails, the way the wind can’t mess it up anymore - the way Hoseok rests his fingers there sometimes and scratches ever so gently.

He looks away when the boy leans down, stealing a kiss from the girl’s upturned lips. It’s almost too much. Jooheon muffles a cough into his scarf and continues his walk, eyes glazing over the distant gray skyline.

It’s not an issue of insecurity - but perhaps of security. It’s not that he doesn’t want that. It’s that maybe they’re already there, that they’re already so close to that unreachable point of no return, of no regrets.

And Jooheon - standing here five blocks from the bus station, toeing the cold crack of the sidewalk, his cheeks stinging red from the wind - has no idea what to do with himself at this point, what he would _ever_ do with himself beyond this point - if he ever gets there.

The prolonged silence speaks for itself across the phone. Jooheon shifts it along his cheek, the screen dragging in patches across his skin. The rumble of a stove is playing in low tones through the speaker, and he debates just hanging up.

Minhyuk, as if alerted by a strange sixth sense, speaks up. “It’s fine - I don’t really get it, but it’s you. I won’t ever really understand what you’re going through,” the soft _clink_ of glass jars rings out sharp and clear above the bubbling stove, “but I’ve seen the way he looks at you - it’s as if he’s just discovered what it’s like to see all the beautiful things in the world - but just by looking at you.”

Jooheon doesn’t reply, digging his nose into the folds of his scarf. He breathes in-out, in-out, fast and slow, and blinks away the sudden mist stealing across his vision.

“Just spend Halloween with him, have some fun and fall a little bit more in love~” Minhyuk speaks up again, voice infused with cheerful pep. The distinct drip-drip of liquid flows through the crackling silence, pooling with gentle ease into the empty glasses.

“And you?” Jooheon attempts to ask in a steady voice, clearing the clogged emotion from his throat. “What are you going to be doing?”

There’s a pause, and he swears he can practically hear Minhyuk’s eerie grin through the phone. A wavering smile steals over his own lips.

“I’m making some of my own special preparations for Halloween night.”

/

The costumes arrive two days too early, and Jooheon is left peering reluctantly over Hoseok’s shoulder as the older man tears them straight out of the package.

They unravel in wrinkled clumps, smelling like clean laundry left too long to tumble in the wash. The pink ears on the bunny’s hood sag like a pair of picked daisies, and what Jooheon assumes to be the bee’s stinger hangs so heavy the bottom half of the onesie is stretched out by virtue of him holding it up alone.

Hoseok bounces the hood of the bunny up and down, making the ears nod toward him in excited agreement. When he catches Jooheon’s stare, he only beams brighter and turns the hood in his direction with another floppy nod.

Despite it all, Jooheon finds the costume oddly endearing.

“We should try them on,” Hoseok announces, flipping over the couch with an eager straddle that has him leaning right into Jooheon’s space.”You know, get a feel for them before the big day.”

The younger man goes cross-eyed trying to look anywhere but Hoseok’s sparkling, persuasive stare. In the end, he yields with a mumbled “sure,” the folds of his own costume muffled over his mouth. Hoseok’s smile in response speaks loud, magnificent volumes.

 

Jooheon helps Hoseok “suit up” first, as the older man had so happily called it. It’s a front-button up kind of design, with one side sewn in with a column of snaps and the other side embedded with the matching cheap plastic grooves to fit them into.

And somehow Jooheon is the only one pulling them together. Hoseok stands there, hands dangled at his sides, that bright smile still plastered over his face.

“Hyung-” Jooheon starts, grumbling under his breath. There’s a particularly small snap at the top, and he fumbles with it, fingers jerking over one another and the pale skin of Hoseok’s neck. The snap misses its spot anyway as if it was made just for difficult situations like these.

A puff of laughter brushes over his cheek. Jooheon’s face burns, and he focuses on the snap with urgent intensity. _Click-click_ , it takes two more tries before the plastic parts slide past one another, slick as water, and right out of his sore fingers.

If he wasn’t already looking down, Jooheon would hang his head in pure mortification.  

Hoseok’s amusement sounds again, and this time, steady hands are winding around his own, broad knuckles locking into the spaces between his curled fingers, clenching tight, pressing just so - and _click_. The stubborn snap pops in without further protest.

Jooheon slowly looks up. Somehow he wants to cry - from relief or a kind of embarrassment that only Hoseok can evoke, he’s not sure. The man in question only pulls him close, palms sliding across the back of his hands. His eyes are gentle, sweet amusement colored like a child’s playground in the afternoon light.

Jooheon can feel the rasp of gym calluses bumping over his knuckles, can breathe in the undertones of stale deodorant from up close. His mind seems to always spin, thrown slightly off axis, whenever Hoseok looks at him like this.

The older man tugs on his hood, letting his head fall to the side as two long ears obediently follow. “Not too bad right?” His big grin says he already knows it.

“No - you’re a very handsome bunny,” Jooheon acquiesces, glancing away to tug at the tip of an ear. He misses the way Hoseok’s eyes crinkle, the way his cheeks bunch up like pink roses in full bloom.

“Yeah,” a quick kiss dots against his brow, and the ear slides free from his fingers. He pulls back to meet Hoseok’s adoring expression, the heat of chapped lips still warm on his skin. Hoseok’s fingers wind around the nape of his neck, playing with the short hairs of his undercut. “You’re gonna look even cuter though,” he promises, marking his words with a habitual scratch.

Jooheon shakes minutely, silent and already giving way under his touch. Hoseok steals another small kiss, the impression of his mouth blossoming across Jooheon’s cheek.

 

This time, assistance is absolutely necessary. The bee onesie is fitted with velvet buttons on the front, but to Jooheon’s (dismayed) discovery they’re purely there for decoration. Hoseok finds the zipper at the back with a small breathless chuckle.

Jooheon glances back and sighs, the loose onesie sagging around his shoulders. “Zip me up?”

“With pleasure,” Hoseok hums, a hand already at his waist. Jooheon can still feel the weight of it even through the layers of thick cotton and sweaters.

The distant whining of the zipper quickly finds its way to the top of his neck, closing the costume over his body with a tight buzz. It’s not too bad - the stinger sags all the way to his thighs, and the antennas on the hood cinch the neckline too closely against his throat - but it fits. The stale smell of laundry is already settling in, wrapping him up in an old, moth-eaten blanket.

Still, Hoseok remains at his back, breath tentative and tickling at his ear. Jooheon could close his eyes and fall back, if he wanted to - but they’re caught in a weird way, Hoseok’s arms wound halfway around his waist, Jooheon’s neck almost resting against his shoulder - the distance between them, minute and practically insurmountable.

Hoseok’s next exhale comes out as a long shudder. “Hey,” he whispers, and his voice is low and careful. Jooheon can feel the outline of it curl over the crook of his ear. “Can I hug you?” Hoseok finishes, trailing off, almost soundless.

Jooheon swallows and nods. His “yes” is a dry rasp - but it’s enough for the both of them. It’s a moment of simultaneous motion, Jooheon curving back and Hoseok leaning in to meet him. Firm arms wind across his stomach, pulling back to chest, holding tight as if they were never meant to be apart in the first place.

Neither of them have said it before - the three word confession sitting on the tip of Jooheon’s swelling tongue. But on those Sunday mornings, when Hoseok had traced the bridge of his nose with the back of his knuckles and Jooheon had feigned sleep with the sun soaking along his spine - in those moments, it was there between them, a dream-laden promise.

Now, it’s heavy in his mouth, clinking against his teeth, rolling from cheek to cheek. Hoseok sighs against his neck, sweet and warm, and Jooheon almost spits it out right then and there.

He let his eyes fall shut, bites down on his tongue, and leans back. Hoseok pressed against him, around him, the warm curve of his chest pulsing with a drowsy heartbeat, so much like his own - it’s more than enough in the moment. He swallows around the lump in his throat.

Behind him, Hoseok closes his eyes and drops his face to his shoulder, and holds on a little tighter, pulls him even closer. “I can’t wait until Halloween,” he murmurs, his words whispered into the bright yellow folds.

Jooheon replies with a slow, quiet kiss. It’s a long time before they part, even longer before they remember to take off their costumes.

/

The night before Halloween, Jooheon sleeps over at Hoseok’s place.

The bed, cramped as always and spilling over with various stuffed animals, is strewn with blankets that tangle over them like misshapen quilt patches. Jooheon remembers, with his nose dug into the crook of Hoseok’s neck, breathing in warmth and clean lavender soap.

Their onesies were in a discarded pile, one laid over the other, and he had fallen asleep with the impression of Hoseok along his back, small exhales parting his hair.  

 

In the morning, they each shower separately - Hoseok first because he likes waking with the sun, and Jooheon second, because the bed had felt awfully empty to his curled-up body.

When Jooheon steps into the kitchen, he smells like refreshing spring scented body wash and sharp cinnamon shampoo. He finds Hoseok at the stove, burning the toast just right. The older man glances over, eyes crinkling when he finds Jooheon’s wet head pressed against his bare shoulder.

Above the overpowering stink of burnt toast, Jooheon’s freshly showered self envelops him in a familiar scent. Hoseok drags a kiss across the younger’s brow, tasting the bitter tang of his own body wash in his mouth. Jooheon blinks at him, lashes glistening like wet ink, and rumbles deep in his throat in reply.

“Good morning to you too,” Hoseok laughs, heart aching beneath his easy smile.

Jooheon fixes him with another drowsy stare. In the mornings, he moves too slowly, his mind too sluggish to think straight - and Hoseok, standing right in front of the window, already beaming at him - Jooheon can only greet the sun with silent awe.

Hoseok’s makes a small sound when Jooheon leans over to kiss him, lips falling open without further protest. Today the toast is burned beyond salvation.

 

In the mornings, Hoseok is a wonderful fabrication of light and Jooheon convinces himself to hold onto the illusion as long as possible - because no matter how wonderful, how loving, the light fades and day will always make way for the night.

/

The party is a friends-only affair, hosted (willingly) at Minhyuk’s slightly posher and somehow more affordable apartment. Jooheon chalks it up to good luck; Minhyuk tells him its something a bit more - something about reading his own tarot cards and the stars being arranged in the correct alignment.

 _Bullshit_ , Jooheon had scoffed, but here they are. Hoseok’s car hums with its worn out engine as they roll along the curb, sputtering, shaking, and then collapsing with a shudder. The bus was, unfortunately, not an option tonight given their manner of dress.

Hoseok wouldn’t mind either way, but he does like the way Jooheon looks, curled up in the passenger’s seat, leaned against the window, dozing off in _his_ car. He likes that Jooheon spends more time cramming in his dorm, sleeping in his car, _with him_ , more than ever before.

 

They both step out just in time as the garage door pulls open and a faraway figure peeps a blurry head out at them. Jooheon squints, and all he can make out is the floppy points of two ears. Hoseok only waves, the sleeve of his onesie flapping from side to side.

When they climb up to the open garage, (and of course only Minhyuk finds a home at the top of a secluded hill) it’s Changkyun waiting there for them, hands tucked into the sagging pockets of his own onesie.

“Nice costume hyung,” he comments, nodding his head at Jooheon’s drooping antennas. The stuffed snout of his wolf hood bounces with lopsided enthusiasm, and it’s more than a little morbid.

“Did you all plan this or something?” Jooheon grumbles, eyeing Hoseok as they all head into the apartment through the back door.

“Nah-” Changkyun toes off his sneakers at the stained welcome mat and motions to Hoseok, “it was all your _boyfriend’s_ idea.” He snickers at the shadow of a scowl that Jooheon directs at him. Hoseok calls out a light “thanks changkyunnie” from his place at the end of their little line.

“The gang’s all here~” Changkyun crows into the brightly-lit living room, winding around the corner to meet the attention of three stares. Hyunwoo waves with soft cheer, Kihyun looks up with a bored hum, and there’s a slow nod from Hyungwon’s turtle clad figure.

“Ugh, he went all out again.” Jooheon shudders, edging his way past the door framed in fine spiderwebs. The threads hang low, swaying like strips of woven silk, each one distinctly separate from the other.  

“Really though...”Hoseok whispers, mouth wide as he glances at the various lamps hung around the room. They pulse with a strange intensity, going in and out, one brightening to a soft orange as another darkens to a lucid red. They’re all slightly out of sync, just enough for it to feel like something natural. “It’s lovely,” he breathes out, soft and wondrous.

“Thanks!”

Hoseok and Jooheon simultaneously jump at the sudden intrusion, Jooheon a little higher. Minhyuk honest-to-god cackles. “Come on lovebirds,” he whistles, brushing past with a tray in his hands, “it’s time to get the party started.”

There are seven shot glasses lined up on his serving platter, each one sporting its own distinct, murky mixture. Jooheon looks into the eyes of his blurry reflection who mirrors his own uncertainty from the polished silver as he reaches for a random drink. Quick enough, Minhyuk slaps his hand away from the first glass and offers him a bright orange drink from the end of the line instead.

Jooheon raises a brow at him, but Minhyuk only pushes the glass in his direction with a stubborn grin. “You can barely handle a can of cheap beer - what makes you think I’m going to give you my special mix of spiked Halloween punch?”

Kihyun’s obnoxious laughter interrupts whatever dumb excuse Jooheon had, and Minhyuk is already whisking away the tray to distribute the drinks to each respective party-goer. After handing Hyunwoo the last glittering brown-green mixture, he raises his own glass for a toast.

“To a _frightening_ ,” he wiggles his eyebrows at Jooheon, “romantic,” he winks at Hoseok, to which Jooheon discretely flips him off, “and an overall horror-filled Halloween!” He pumps his fist in the air, gaining a few hoots of approval, and he tips his drink back in one quick swallow.

Jooheon swirls his own glass, sighing as he stares at its cloudy color. Hoseok meets his eye as he throws back his own shot, shooting him a small smile. Jooheon attempts a grin, but its shaky through the grimace and Hoseok’s eyes soften in response. He winces a little, sticking out the tip of his tongue in exaggerated disgust.

In the end, Jooheon lets out a shaky laugh and drinks his mystery shot with a pinched nose and closed eyes. The thing is, it’s really not that bad - there’s a sweet tang that stays on the tip of his tongue and a hint of bitterness that burns at the back of his throat as it goes down. It’s not so bad.

It’s just that his closed eyes never seem to open again.

/

There are three distinct things Jooheon notices when he wakes up.

  1. Minhyuk’s mischievous self is nowhere in sight.
  2. Neither is anyone else in the room.
  3. There’s something muffling his nose, like a heavy scarf constantly shifting itself over his mouth.



Jooheon sits up with a gasp, and the weight immediately falls, landing with a _thump_ in his lap. He shudders, taking deep breaths in and out, the world a soft blur of color before him. Minhyuk’s strange lanterns are still glowing, fading to their own nonsensical rhythm, and the black tinting the edge of his vision seems to pulse along.

Jooheon shifts in place, and the warm ball in his lap erupts into sudden motion. A short pain flares from the broad part of his thigh, and Jooheon jerks his gaze downward to see- 

A rabbit.

A beady, black-eyed rabbit sniffling up at him with twitching whiskers and a damp little nose. There’s a floppy gray ear on either side of its head, draping over the fat curve of its furry body. It looks like any other normal garden rabbit his mother would shoo out of her vegetable plot - but it stares at Jooheon, unblinking, unflinching, as if it wants something.

Jooheon peers closer, lowering himself until they’re nose to nose and its fine whiskers are brushing minuscule breezes over his cheek.

The longer he looks, the stranger the swirling pit in his stomach grows. Inside the rabbit’s glossy gaze, there’s an uncanny spark of recognition. Jooheon’s eyes roll in their sockets; he feels faint.

“Hyung-” he chokes out, struggling not to fall right back onto the floor and let the confusion overtake him. “ _Hoseok_?”

Two paws thump against his arm, little pinpricks digging red welts into his wrist. Still up close, the rabbit makes a furtive hop to bump their noses together.

It’s wet, slightly cold, and Jooheon is too shocked to pull away - but _it’s him_. His mouth opens in a silent scream, every breath, every possible sound locked up somewhere deep inside.  

 

_my boyfriend is a rabbit._

 

The revelation repeats through his mind, in order, out of order, tangling with abstract images, wordless emotions, and delirious, dissonant echoes. There are neon flashes of panic, gray waves of exhausting numbness, and Jooheon only stares at Minhyuk’s pulsating lanterns, in and out, in and out, as he feels his own mind hurtle slowly but surely towards inevitable implosion.

In between the glow of sepia red fading to peach pink, a thought that had been marinating, stewing, and stringing itself together from misshapen patches suddenly occurs to him, wholly complete: where and _what_ exactly are the others?

He looks down at Hoseok again, who meets his eyes with raised paws, curved out in adorable prayer - a _bunny_. Jooheon eyes snap open, and he yanks at the sleeve of his own onesie, roving over the expanse of the yellow fabric in an intense daze.

Kihyun, hamster; Hyungwon, turtle; Changkyun, wolf; Hyunwoo, bear - oh _God_

And him, a bee, and somehow still entirely intact and human.

Jooheon wobbles to his feet, cradling Hoseok in his palm, shielding the rabbit’s pulsing little body with the curve of his own shaking chest, and he stumbles out the door at a breakneck pace.

 

Through the incomprehensible muttering and the rising, screaming panic, Jooheon decides, without a doubt, Halloween is, truly, the absolute worst.

/ 

There’s a sheen of sweat plastered across his body, a fuzzy ball wriggling within his grasp, and the kind of all-encompassing exhaustion that seems to settle like heavy poison into his bones - but most of all, no matter how far he’s looked,  sprinting down the street, peering into tiny hamster-sized nooks and crannies - the world is devoid of any assortment of animals.

Jooheon crashes to a halt alongside a streetlamp, leaning against his knees, heaving puffs of breath through his nose. Even when he looks up, clearing the tightness from his chest, the night is still a haze.

The streetlamps blur the line between darkness and light with flickers of motion - dust, moths, or the distortion of his own eyes. At his feet, the shadows are filled with infinite dimensions of color, saturated by an unnatural spill of yellow and black.

Short hairs tickle into the dip of his collarbone, leaving little kisses along the length of his throat. Jooheon sneezes, but he tucks Hoseok closer, slipping the rabbit inside the front of his onesie. A wild scrabbling ensues, and Jooheon shivers at the simultaneous rise of goosebumps under the rasp of bristles and fur.  

“Need some help?”

The rabbit stops squirming and raises his head with a quick jerk. Jooheon follows his motion, squinting past the flare of the lamplight towards the disembodied voice.

Minhyuk waves at them, fluttering his fingers in the most extravagant and obnoxious manner from his perch atop the street lamp. There’s a tall hat stuck onto his head in lopsided fashion, black and pointed with fluttering orange ribbons tied around the middle. Certainly, he’s grinning as if he was the most evil, black-hearted witch in the whole wide world.

“What-” Jooheon clutches Hoseok to his chest, a variation for every kind of question stuck in his throat. In the end, he swallows down everything else and asks: “How the hell did you get up there?”

“Oh, this?” Minhyuk shrugs, swirling his finger in a practiced flick. The wind suddenly picks up in tandem, ruffling the translucent ribbons of his hat. Minhyuk grins, meeting Jooheon’s eye as he pushes off of the lamp in a smooth cartwheel, landing right in the empty air.

Jooheon stares, unbidden, mouth dry, as Minhyuk turns through the night sky, hands then feet, until he eventually stops, posed in a gymnast’s finishing v. He can see the soles of Minhyuk’s sneakers, rocking back and forth like he’s standing on the surface of a water balloon.

Minhyuk frowns, dropping his hands to his side. “What, no applause?” He pouts, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back to flop onto an invisible seat. He even raises his feet, crossing them at the ankles for good measure.

“Are you a fucking _demon_?” Jooheon shrieks, using both hands to press Hoseok to him. The rabbit’s body seems to throb against his palms, beating the same urgent rhythm as his own heart. Jooheon, out of intense fear for himself or Hoseok - he doesn’t know, holds him even closer.

“Hey, the correct term to use here is witch.” Minhyuk tips his chin, pulling his hat off with a flourish and a half bow. “But I suppose you’re close enough for your first guess.”

Jooheon could cry. In fact, he crumples to the grass with an ungainly thump, sprawling out on his ass, Hoseok still clutched to his chest. Right now, the solid muscle shifting and curling under his hands is the only thing convincing him of the reality of the situation.

“Come on, it’s not that bad~” Minhyuk sing-songs, tipping off of his chair-stool to roll backward through the night sky. He pulls himself upright with a graceful arch of his back and props his chin between his palms, knees still bent and floating, as he meets Jooheon’s eye. “Besides aren’t there other things you should be worried about?” He directs a sharp grin at the lump hidden under Jooheon’s onesie.

“What-” Jooheon wishes he could get up so that he could simply fall back down again, and this time it’ll be hard enough to knock himself out and wake up to another normal, non-Halloween day. As it stands he’s still awake in this entirely too-horrible-to-be-real dream. “What did you do to them?” he asks, a slow dread digging its nails into his spine.

“You assume it was me,” Minhyuk taps a gloved finger to his lips, but his terrible smile says it all.

It’s a hard thing to find your voice when your supposed best friend is apparently A. a witch and B. has turned all your other friends into their respective animal costumes.

Jooheon tries to speak, but a weak, blubbering, squeaky “ _why_ ” is all he can summon from his collapsing chest.

“That’s for _you_ to find out!” Minhyuk exclaims, pushing off to float through the air for a short distance. His hair flies, careless and carefree, around his cheeks. They’re tinted pink from the chilly air, and he’s positively glowing, like those cheap pumpkin lanterns hung around his house.

“What does that even mean?” Jooheon screams up at him. The echoes of his voice trill off like shrill, ghostly imitations, ringing through the neighborhood. On any other day, he’d surely be fined for excessive noise - but today, tonight, he needs some way of dealing with this weird other-world he’s been dumped into.

“I’ve already looked - in your dumb apartment, everywhere on this goddamn street, even in the gross dog-shit stained bushes-” Jooheon continues to shout, hurling every weight from his lungs, until he’s heaving, completely empty and running on dry fumes. He presses his face to his knees, closing his eyes to the world. His lashes stick together with a hint of tears, and his own heartbeat sounds too loud in his own ears - and Hoseok is still a damn rabbit sniffling against his chest.

“Just make it go back to normal again _please_ ,” he sniffles, so small and quiet he almost wonders if he had truly spoken those words aloud.

“As I’ve said,” Minhyuk’s voice is awfully soft - and close. Jooheon ducks up to immediately jerk back as Minhyuk’s face is right there in front of his own. The gleeful expression is gone, replaced with one of solemn contemplation. His cheeks glow, eerily porcelain under the light of the moon. There’s a deep unspoken emotion in his eyes, shining with pearls of glittering secrets. It makes Jooheon want to punch him: so he does.

Minhyuk floats back, avoiding the weak hit with pathetic ease. Jooheon makes to chase after him, but he flops back down with a frustrated grunt and pulls the collar of his onesie over his face. Hoseok whines from his muffled place against his chest, and Jooheon curls in tighter on the tiny ball of fur.

“You need to look _harder,_ confront your fears, your insecurities - find yourself. Find those places inside and outside, within and without, and the magic will automatically lead you to them as well.” Minhyuk calls from a safe distance, pulled further and further away by an invisible string dangled from the sky. His brows tilt with a sad frown and he cups his hands around his mouth: “I can’t do anything at this point. It’s all up to you.”

 

By the time Jooheon has curbed the impulse to call Minhyuk every rude thing imaginable, the man (or witch) in question has already blended into the dark fabric of the night.

With a senseless noise, Jooheon stomps to his feet and begins his meaningless journey down the street. He doesn’t know where he’s going, or if he even aims to look for any of his friends-turned-animals anymore, but apparently he has to look harder and confront the “places” within himself - whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.

He scrubs at his eyes, cradles the twitching curve of Hoseok’s head against his palm, and sets out on his way.

/

After walking for so long, Jooheon has already left behind the structured borders of the neighborhood streets to roam through the plain grass. There’s a local park with open fields that he and Hoseok went to a for a rare Sunday morning jog, and the faded memory of it is the only refuge offered to him as Jooheon collapses against a tree.

The air around them is filled with a lively quiet. Under the peace of the night, the park’s mini forest is buzzing with activity. Along with the harmonization of night cicadas, there’s the ever-constant rustle of some kind of animal through the brush.

Jooheon closes his eyes and concentrates on his overwhelmingly absurd fear of bugs, hoping for it to be enough for the “magic” to lead one of his friends back to him.

After long enough, it’s just the sound of his ragged breathing in his ears. Jooheon breaks down with a loud sigh. He’s beginning to think he’s being played - by Minhyuk, by the world at large.

“I’m sorry hyung,” he bumps his forehead against Hoseok’s soft furry own. “I’ll find some way out of this. I’ll get you, all of you, back to normal.” His promise sounds weak to his own ears, but it’s one that needs to made - for Hoseok’s sake.

The rabbit snorts, blowing a wet breath across his lips and Jooheon sputters. “Is that your way of saying you’re going to break up with me after this?”

Two paws dig into his chest, dragging tiny rips through his t-shirt. “Ow, ow, ow,” Jooheon protests, hauling Hoseok out of his onesie to hold him high above his head and away from his bruised chest. The rabbit struggles against his hands, long hind legs kicking into the air with such fervor Jooheon sets him onto the ground to avoid any further injury.

The whole situation can’t get seem to get any worse - until Hoseok paws at a floppy ear, sniffles, and without another look, bounds away into the unknown darkness.

“Fuck - no, hyung - Hoseok come back!” Jooheon calls, trying to haul himself upright. The rabbit only continues hopping away with mindless animal intent.

Jooheon curses the world for the third time tonight and runs without abandon into the darkening woods.

 

The chase is a blind, fruitless tumble through untrimmed greenery and misleading sounds. There’s been too many a times when an inhuman call has sounded from a passing bush or the branches whipping by behind him, and Jooheon can only stumble faster, praying to God’s last mercy that he won’t trip.

At this point, he’s heard many a rustling in the tall brush or the leaves above head - for all he knows, he could’ve been following a random squirrel for the past however long he’s been chasing Hoseok through the park.

He’s considering calling the police and telling them about a pet rabbit he’s accidentally set loose into the park. It’s ridiculous, but it’s better than telling them “my friend, who by the way is a witch, turned all my friends into animals to teach me some lesson about self-confidence and insecurity. Please help me I’m really not crazy.”

Jooheon huffs a breath to himself, wiping the sweat dripping over his eyes. _Maybe I am really going crazy after all_ , he thinks, blinking around the sharp fractures of light that slip in and out between his lashes. There’s a soft glow in the distance, steadily growing brighter and closer and more real with every step. Jooheon reaches for it half-dead, delirious with hope.

 

He steps into the clearing and there’s a strange, very real orb radiating light from its place in the grass. Jooheon inches closer, circling it with care. It certainly seems real, pulsating dimly like a living, breathing creature before him. Jooheon kneels down, and puts out his palms, just barely touching the surface. It reaches back, emanating a steady warmth.

In his tired, emotionally exhausted state, he draws closer. The heat of it soothes, like a mother’s heartbeat against her baby’s ear, like the silent touch of a lover under the glow of deep sunset. Jooheon curls up around it, pressing his own ear to the warbled beat emanating from within - and like that, his eyes flicker open, closed, and finally shut in sleep.

 

In his dream, he’s returned to the memory of that morning of Hoseok and him in the park again. He, the sleeping, dreaming Jooheon, is floating from somewhere above in a watery state of unconsciousness. He can see everything, but he can’t move. The dream directs itself, and he is simply pulled along, a little pebble swaying in a big blue ocean.

Dream-Hoseok is fuzzy around the edges, but he glows, spilling over with a pure morning light. Jooheon finds that he can’t quite see his own dream self’s face - but he can feel the contentment seeping through him, like warm water filling him up and ballooning from the inside out. He floats along, satiated, watching the both of them stroll along the path.

Eventually, the pair pauses, and Jooheon frowns. He doesn’t remember this part. In his memory, they walk until they leave the park, and then Hoseok kisses him on his cheek - it was their fourth date - and then they each go their separate ways. Or at least, that was how it was supposed to go. He wades through the heavy-air to get a closer look at Hoseok’s face.

The older man is smiling as always, lips forming wonderful shapes, a beautiful vulnerability painted over his face. Jooheon reaches out unconsciously, his hands caressing the soft curve of Hoseok’s chin. Hoseok’s mouth moves, delight tangible as the muffled words growing louder and louder -

“ _i love you_.”

Jooheon tips back, reeling through the air. He’s being pulled into some dark vacuum, the brightness of Hoseok’s joy fading at light speed before him. As he hurtles faster and faster towards consciousness, he can only wonder what his own dream-self had said in reply.

 

The first thing Jooheon sees upon opening his eyes is a pointed snout with full, twitching cheeks directly sat over his forehead. He jerks upright, catching the rodent before it can tumble into the tall grass.

It’s so small, it barely takes up any space in his palm. The poor thing rolls into a tiny ball, baring its spotted back to Jooheon’s confused gaze.

Jooheon holds it up by the scruff, looking at its clawed paws, its rounded ears. It’s a common household hamster. There are light brown spots dotting uneven patches in its fur. Underneath the cold moonlight, they shimmer a dusty orange.

Jooheon utters his guess out loud before he can think too hard about it: “Kihyun hyung?”

The hamster drops its paws from its fuzzy face and blinks at Jooheon with newfound recognition. It squeaks out a hesitant affirmation. _Thank God_ , exhales Jooheon, tucking Kihyun into the fold of his thin chest pocket. That’s one down, three to go - four, including a runaway Hoseok.

He pushes himself to his feet, knees aching, and sets upon a new, aimless route. He has a feeling Hoseok is long gone from here and it’s up to him to find where the rabbit ran off to.

In his mind, the remnants of the dream echo with false words over and over again through his ears, as easy as the passing breeze. Jooheon walks on, faster, and tries to deny the automatic twisting of his heart.

 

_It’s not like any of that was real. As if anything like that could ever happen._

/

As they walk, Jooheon finds Kihyun the hamster is just about as great at keeping up conversation as Kihyun the human is. Which is to say, they both chatter in incessant bursts without considering any input from their fellow conversational partner.

Not that Jooheon has anything coherent on his mind at the moment.

(Even so, he remembers Hoseok’s constant presence, pressed quiet at his side whether he had anything to say or not. Jooheon misses that silence, misses the companionship - he misses Hoseok).

The shrill squeaks punctuating every dragging step are wearing him thin. The next time he sets his foot down, a numb shiver travels all the way up, wiggling from a delicate pinkie toe to the flat crown of his head.

Jooheon pauses in place, suffering a mild spasm. When he looks down, Kihyun decides to do the same and he squirms around to peer over the pocket, making Jooheon writhe with another wave of mild discomfort.

The flat part of his sneaker is directly on a sidewalk crack. The darkness seeps out from its uneven sides, and the shadows almost seem to stick like tar to the soles of his shoes. But that’s not it, it’s not what’s causing the continual creep of goose-flesh up his spine.

They’ve found it, finally after more aimless wandering - another mysterious glowing orb of light.

Jooheon groans and falls to his knees, glad for an excuse to rest his swollen feet. Kihyun chirrups, a questioning high note from his muffled place within the onesie pocket. Jooheon is already falling into the dream, drawn to the rhythmic pulse that’s emanating the same dazzling warmth from before.

Before he falls, diving into a deep doze, he wonders why this warmth should feel so familiar to him.

 

He arrives in the dream with a slow, effervescent wake. His stomach is hung like a hammock, floating from side to side in a pleasant swaying breeze, and the rest of him is similarly suspended in wisps of molasses.

Jooheon could curl up, fall asleep - a dream within a dream that he would never have to wake up from. Besides, in these little worlds, Hoseok is always there.

Speaking of - the pair of them, dream-Hoseok and his own dream-self, emerge through the thin outline of a door frame. A bell dings through the faraway fog.

 _A cafe_? Jooheon ponders, unfurling himself to drift over to the couple. With the dip of a foot, he manages to propel his body directly above the couple, give or take a few inches. If this is how Minhyuk gets around, he ponders, swimming his arms through the air, he could get used to the idea of witches.

Below, the two situate themselves at a single round table. The chairs are the stiff, high-backed ones that lift their feet clear off the ground. Like that, the longer Jooheon watches, the closer the two inch towards one another, tipping the tall stools over until they’re practically kissing.

This Hoseok is still sporting the faded white and blue hair; even through the bright fog of the dream, the hyper-stylized color highlights the pale shade of his cheek. In Jooheon’s eyes, the image of Hoseok pops open like a firework in full bloom. Jooheon liked the hairstyle, still does, and he can feel his own chest grow warm with praise.

“You look so handsome,” he sighs aloud, releasing the fluttery feeling the way a balloon slips out of a child’s fingers. It leaves him light-headed and a little empty, but he has no doubt his own dream-self is repeating the same adoration.

Hoseok’s eye-crinkling grin returns in reply, but only for the faceless Jooheon in front of him. Jooheon dives down, drawn to the pink blotches coloring the older man’s cheeks. They match his hair, make his skin light and dewy, and his everything is so, so perfect.

With weightless hands, he reaches out, palms open, trying to turn Hoseok just so - to touch him, to ask him to look his way, to smile at him again, _please_.

When Hoseok does turn, it’s with aching deliberation. Jooheon’s practically begging, his heartstrings pulled taut by the tilted corners of soft lips. Those lips spread wider, pinker, kinder, and finally, they’re facing him.

Hoseok smiles in his gentle way and wraps his fingers around Jooheon’s translucent own. His lips move again, wrapping soft but sure around three words -

“ _i love you_.”

This time, as Jooheon is yanked back, brisk air tearing past him, he can’t even pretend to be surprised. He pulls his onesie over his face, muffles the broken noise fighting free from his closed throat, and he tells himself - it’s a delusion. The sooner he wakes up, the quicker the pain will end, and the easier it will be to face his own lies.

 

This time, the weight on his face is uncomfortable, but unfortunately, expected.

He peels the new animal from his damp cheeks and rubs an errant sleeve across his leaking nose. The hard shell in his hand rocks, rolling back and forth at a lazy rhythm.

When Jooheon has scrubbed the dumb expression off his face, he looks down at the new addition to his impromptu rescue group. A leathery brown head peeks out of the lip of the shell. Its wrinkled mouth opens and closes at a monumental pace, and it meets his eyes with a slow wink.

“Hyungwon hyung,” Jooheon sighs aloud. The turtle’s head droops - and then it rises, nodding with strenuous effort.

Hyungwon goes into his empty hood, and Kihyun is still secured and squeaking away safely in his front pocket. Jooheon gets to his feet, leaning over to count the solid rhythm of his heart within his chest.

It’s enough at the moment. He’s awake now. The terrible hope of the dream is far away, as false as it always has been, as it always should be.

 

Two down - three to go. Jooheon musters all of his shaking sensibilities to him and trudges on, determined to get this over with. The promise of going back to Hoseok, being allowed to return to the simple unspoken quiet between them - he would be content with that. He would never even dare to ask more.

 _Just let me find him_ , he hopes, prays to any god, demon, witch - to anyone willing to hear him out on this endless Halloween night.

/   

In the arduous journey to find the next glowing orb of foggy memories and false delusions, Jooheon re-evaluates many things about his life.

There’s his long-standing friendship with Minhyuk - which has emerged as very problematic in the light of current events. First, he’s a witch, and now he turns everyone, including his own friends, into animals?

When Jooheon sorts through his mess, he’s going to find that man and deliver him a hearty punch - whether he’s still doing his little flying tricks or not.

 

Then, there’s Hoseok. Jooheon comes to a lurching halt in the middle of another indiscriminate sidewalk.

The turtle shell bounces against his back and Kihyun’s round ears peek out from his hood, twitching in question, but Jooheon is lost for the moment.

 _I love you_ , he mouths those words to himself. Each sound, even the shape of the letters, is traced over his lips, gentle as a lover’s touch. He touches his own mouth, tentative, fingertips fluttering, barely there - and shudders with a sudden surge of warmth.

The feeling of it, it’s pure sacrilege. The taste of it dripping on his tongue, even if only an imitation, is enough to leave him wanting an impossible, indefinable _more_.

 

When he finds the next glowing orb, the empty hole in him widens, splitting into a yawning cavern. Jooheon pulls the ball to his chest, ravenous for even the scraps of a dream, starving after the barest hint of a promise. He closes his eyes and easily falls into the warmth of open arms.

The dream comes as a domestic Sunday scene - Hoseok leaned against the couch and Jooheon’s own unruly head propped on the older man’s shoulder, no doubt still dozing. Jooheon passes through a wall, watching the translucent essence of his body diffuse apart and then piece together again, each floating bit carrying its own internal compass.  

The morning light fractures through the clear window and Hoseok leans into it, at peace with the slow turn of the world. The color of the sun adorns his hair, glowing in fading spires of soft yellow. Jooheon drifts to his side and settles his head against his other shoulder. Hoseok hums with his eyes closed, soaked through with warmth.

This time he can feel it coming, hear the clear shift in the air. Hoseok’s chin nuzzles over his hair, turning, and a deep exhale seeps into his skin.

“ _i love you_.”

Jooheon grabs him, cupping Hoseok’s cheeks as tight as his flickering hands will allow and breathes it in, tasting the words the way someone would look directly at the sun - quick, foolish, and in the flicker of the moment, overcome with pure brilliance.

 

Jooheon wakes and chokes immediately on the dryness of his mouth, the emptiness filling him to the brim. The weight shifts from his chest, and he curls into a ball, muffling his coughs with heavy hands. Deep down, he’s convinced he could taste it again, the tender, aching sweetness drowning within Hoseok’s sad brown eyes.

He was still smiling when Jooheon had kissed him.

A large nose prods against his back, and Jooheon raises his head from the cold, damp grass. The rough snort of a bear cub greets him from above.

“Hey hyung,” he greets with a watery laugh. Hyunwoo digs his nose into the crook of his chin, rubbing his furry head against Jooheon’s tender skin. Kihyun releases a blood-curdling squeak from the onesie pocket, and Hyungwon shifts another inch within his hoodie.

Despite the pain in his throat, Jooheon smiles a little. He wraps his arms around the bear’s wide neck, closing his eyes, and watches Hoseok’s smile, glimmering like the play of light on water, fade away beneath his lids. _Just a few moments more_ , he promises himself, swallowing down a tender indescribable part of himself.

He clenches his fingers around brittle strands of fur, pulling, scratching, just to feel something solid sting against his palms again. Hyunwoo huffs, nudging Jooheon ever closer and waits.

/

The moon grows rounder overheard, swollen like a ball of rotten pus. Every time Jooheon looks up at it, the light seems to drip down further, seeping over his skin with sticky fingers. He wipes at his cheek and feels the soft grit of dust come loose, the crumbled bits of dried tears catching under his nails. His fingers come away heavy, but the filth, the grime still looms over him, on him, and in him.

Even breathing in the air, it’s laden with something else on the tip of his tongue.

The entire world is bearing down on him, and Jooheon too easily succumbs under its weight.

 

Surprisingly, Minhyuk’s little magic orb finds him unprompted, nudging against his fingers as he lays there, prostrate on the grass. An impatient huff of breath slides over his hand, fresh as morning dew, and Jooheon raises his head from his forlorn state to meet Hyunwoo’s dark stare. The bear nudges his snout against the ball, slowly but surely rolling it ever closer. Kihyun scampers around it, weaving in and out on nervous paws. In the end, he settles for a quick sniff and butts his own stout head against the orb with great effort. Hyungwon, for what it’s worth, has been making his perilous escape from Jooheon’s hood to settle next to his stomach with a deep satisfaction.   

The air lightens, and Jooheon feels at least, that he can smile again. So he does - fishing Kihyun back into his pocket and running a hand over Hyunwoo’s heaving flank. He draws the orb to an automatic close, but this time Hyungwon is drawn along into the warmth, still pressed against his stomach. On the border of being washed away, Jooheon gropes out a blind hand and clutches the curve of the shell tight with the last ounce of awareness left.

 

When he emerges, its a breathless dive through a parallel world. Touching the tips of his fingers to the glittering scene, he passes over with a cool rush and surges through the surface of another sea, still hung upside down. Hyungwon’s knobby head peaks out, turning to see the world in reverse and he immediately shrinks back in. Jooheon tucks him against his chest and waits for the next wave to string them back around.

Head over heels, he tumbles right-side up into a dim room. It’s surprisingly cushioned and he lands, soft, on the clouds of a stuffy dream. Breathing in, he can taste a dry must in the air, as if the dream was left to collect dust in slow, companionable hibernation.

Along the wall, velvet gives way under his fingers, and the outline of blinds reveal themselves with piercing slits of light. The outside reaches in, dazzling him with a formless sun. It pulses, growing to take up the entire space of the window until Jooheon is blinded, blinking only to see pure white.

He clenches his eyes shut, pressing hard, and when he opens them again the brilliant light bursts. When he opens his eyes again, there’s Hoseok’s glowing face. Jooheon jerks back in a moment of pure nerves, only to be sucked down into quick-sand cushions. Hyungwon, in his curled up turtle shell, is suddenly nowhere to be found.

Hoseok laughs, an airy echo, and he straddles Jooheon’s head with his bare arms. Like sculptor’s marble, they’re cut into gentle, romantic curves, a beautiful blessing from the gods on Olympus high.

Hoseok leans over him, grinning in childish delight, at complete ease with their compromising positions. There’s only the clear air and dancing flecks of firefly light blinking between them, but Jooheon will burst if Hoseok comes any closer - if he smiles at him like this, if he continues to look at him like this, if he tries to whisper those cursed three words to him like this.

Jooheon, instinctively, shuts his eyes again. The light fades in a snap, and he slaps his palms over his ears for good measure. He’ll wake from the dream soon enough and the world will go back to normal - his friends, Hoseok, and the end of this damn dream and his everlasting heartbreak.

But he knows it, deep down - for when Hoseok’s hands fit over his own, Jooheon lets go without resistance. His hands fall back against pillows, and he looks up at Hoseok, pleading with silent submission, _don’t do this to me_. Hoseok only shakes his head, eyes drooping in a slow, aching smile. He embraces him wholly, completely, folding himself around Jooheon to lift him from the heavy cushions. Jooheon sags in his hold, an aching absolution, hiccuping, as a deep kiss is placed upon the crook of his shoulder. It burns like a brand, forged in a searing coil of heat, fire, and metal.

“ _i love you_.”

He lets himself free-fall, ripped free from the structure of the world. Stardust blazes by and comets go up in smoke, tearing their last trails of crumbling rock and fumes through the atmosphere in one last act of self-immolation. Jooheon watches the final one go, the clear bubbles of his tears blurring its beautiful orange light as they float up in reverse. He falls and falls, painting his own garish smear across the shattered sky of the cosmos.

 

As he wakes, his cheeks are wet, but not from the dream. A ragged pink tongue continues to drag over his face, laving him with spit and musty dog breath. Jooheon groans, wincing, and pushes the hot panting snout away from his nose. A poodle-sized mutt rolls onto his lap and hops onto its hind legs with a loud yap.

“Changkyun,” Jooheon mutters, rubbing his sleeve over his spit-slicked cheeks. The dog pants, tongue lolling, and pads around in a nonsensical circle. Jooheon rubs Changkyun’s stout head the same way he does with Sanche and points at him to sit. Surprisingly, he obeys.

That’s all of them then - all of them except Hoseok. When Jooheon closes his eyes, he can see it all again: the shattering of the sky in brilliant, apocalyptic color, Hoseok’s tender eyes, his smiling, merciless confession.

Every time, there’s a sadness in his eyes, as clear as a puddle after a spring day’s rain. Jooheon was always the kid to skirt around it, afraid of getting his boots muddy or making his mom mad. Hoseok, then, was the next door neighbor who would pull him along headfirst to dance under thunderstorms without an umbrella or raincoat. His stare was like that, daring him to give in, to surrender everything to the storm.

The wind turns upon his back, hurrying him to his feet, and Jooheon knows the next one is the last. Not just of this silly adventure, but of everything.

He can’t go on like this, dreaming about Hoseok when the real one he wants is right there. He’ll ask, he’ll find his own voice, his own words, and he’ll grab Hoseok by his marble cheeks, his wonderful, selfless smile and demand the truth from those parted lips.

 

Changkyun yips, turning his nose towards the bright stream of moonlight. It shines a path across the night sky, descending to the ground and unspooling like an open road. It moves like silk on water, wavering, rippling over the surface, but Changkyun sprints off, fast on the invisible trail.

Jooheon brushes the dirt from his knees, wipes away the bits of broken stardust from his eyes, and follows.

/

It’s not a coincidence when Changkyun leads him to a stop in front of a small apartment, looming over the edge of a sequestered road.

It’s Hoseok’s dorm room - _home._

Jooheon bends down, never taking his eyes off of the building, and gropes for Changkyun’s bobbing head. A damp nose rubs against his palm, and Jooheon reaches back to scratch the loose fur between twitching ears as a reward. Changkyun barks, prodding harder, but the hand on his head is already drifting away in a passing shadow.

He glances up, tongue lolling with light pants, and Jooheon urges him on with a push against his thin flank. Changkyun goes, galloping up the stairs, and Jooheon follows his padding steps. He knows where to go, can see it with his eyes closed - but in this last moment, any kind of excuse will do.

The climbing of the stairs takes a bit more time and effort than expected - Hyunwoo grumbles all the way up as Changkyun zips back and forth between them in an impatient blur - but they do eventually get there, a bear and a pup flanking Jooheon’s side and two tiny weights wriggling in hand. On the landing, the moon’s serene face bathes within an ocean of swirling nebula and scattered stardust. Looking down at his feet, Jooheon watches white light pool across the floor, seeping into his soles.

He remembers nights, early mornings, of leaning against Hoseok with his eyes drooping closed, the calm soaked over them like warm rainwater. He takes one last look at the face in the sky, the one damned thing following him throughout this whole ordeal, and he turns away.

Hoseok’s door is so quiet before him. Jooheon searches for the key in his pocket, fishing for it through cotton dust and tangled thread with shaking fingers. It had been Hoseok’s only spare, and he had given it to Jooheon without making another copy. Jooheon, admittedly, carries it around more often than he ever did with his own key.

Now, it fits, turning inside the lock with rusted ease. With a hand on the doorknob, Jooheon pauses for one last moment, draws in one final, shuddering breath, and then he pushes in.

 

Inside, the curtains are drawn with only a triangle of light peeking in from a slit in the center. Everything else is muffled in shadow, waiting in a state of deep sleep. The moonlight pierces through the room in sharp singularity, etching its mark across the floor, and Jooheon doesn’t dare disturb the silence. The animals file in on their own accord though, and the holy quiet fades away, like footsteps disappearing from the snow.

Changkyun claws his way up the couch, and Jooheon settles for retrieving a few pillows to keep the puppy still. Hyungwon is seated upon his own cushioned throne with a light, careful touch. The shell rocks a little, but the turtle remains asleep. Jooheon finds a clear fruit bowl to deposit Kihyun in, leaving the hamster to roll around the glass sides.

When Jooheon finally heads for his own resting place, a loud snuffle makes him look down. Hyunwoo peers up at him with what appears to be a father’s stern stare of disapproval on his baby bear face. Jooheon stifles a laugh, and he kneels down to scratch at Hyunwoo’s head.

“It’ll be okay,” he murmurs, laying his own head against a strong furry shoulder. A sharp snort rumbles through him, all the way down to his chest, and Jooheon lets a dislodged chuckle fly free.

When he goes to step into the bedroom again, he glances back to see Hyunwoo seated right where he left him. The bear lays down on his front, propping his chin on crossed front paws, and stares back at Jooheon. _Go on_ , he seems to say, _I’ll be waiting right here_.

Jooheon feels his own heart waver, but he smiles the best he can. “I’ll be back,” he whispers and steps through before he can hesitate.

 

This dream, he decides, curled up in bed, the blankets gripped to his chest - does not feel like a dream. There is no sensation of falling into a warm ocean, the meeting of his unconscious self at a parallel point with an infinity of others behind him. This time he does not float or forget.

He simply opens his eyes.

Hoseok is lain there across from him, a perpetual tilt already at the corner of his lips. In the dim gray moonlight, his eyes convey more in the quiet than any words spoken aloud.

“Hey you.”

“Hey-” Jooheon whispers. His voice is dry, worn thin from fatigue, but he can’t speak any louder. Any more and surely this dream will break, this Hoseok, the last one, will be gone too. In the sacred space caught between twilight and daybreak, with the stars serving as witness and the moon as their lonely judge, Jooheon wants to believe that this is real.

“This _is_ real,” Hoseok breathes back, drawing a hand slowly towards Jooheon’s cheek. The younger man flinches when they touch, the barest brush of fingertips, and Hoseok stops.

“How do I know?” Jooheon struggles to say, urgent. He curls away from Hoseok, locking his hands in a tight prayer against his chest. He clenches his eyes shut. “How do I know _you’re_ real?”

The silence that follows numbs his senses. Jooheon could almost convince himself that the dream is already fading away around him and by the time he opens his eyes, it will just be another bad dream. He’ll wake up and -

Hoseok is still here.

He’s no longer smiling, but he has that stare, the one that promises white clouds after gray skies, the one still tinged with slight melancholy at the edge of a bright blue sky. Jooheon doesn’t want it to rain after it’s been dark for so long; he doesn’t want Hoseok to look so sad. He reaches between them, his fingers stretching open. There’s a part of him, frantic, whispering, screaming at him to stop - but he keeps going. He doesn’t dare reach close enough to touch, but he spreads his fingers wide open and _waits._

Hoseok takes him in hand and pulls forward, enfolding him entirely. Jooheon breathes in an unfurling coil of warmth and he realizes - the strange heat from the glowing orbs, the drowsy sense of familiarity - he finds it now pressed against Hoseok’s rising and falling heartbeat.

“I know you’re real because of this,” Hoseok murmurs, placing a dry kiss on his brow, “this,” another peck on the edge of his cheek, “ _this_ ,” a gentle swipe over his parted lips. He pulls back, and Jooheon can feel the inevitable heartache rising. Not this, not again, he’s going to choke on a shattered piece of his dumb tender heart if Hoseok leaves him like this again.

Hoseok smiles, smiles as he does because he doesn’t feel his own pain, smiles because of the way it makes Jooheon smile too. “It’ll always be real because -

“I love you.”

Hoseok’s eyes widen, his voice stolen from him with a sudden gasp. Jooheon is equally dumbfounded. “I love you,” he repeats, staring blankly as he feels the weight of the words fall from his own lips.

“I love you,” he repeats again, louder. Hoseok’s lax grip tightens, his fingers shaking around Jooheon’s own.

“I love you,” he whispers as if speaking a sacred prayer aloud, a veneration, and this time he looks directly into Hoseok’s eyes.

The older man is smiling, and the clouds in his eyes are heavy and gray, leaking with long-forgotten raindrops - underneath them, a clear blue spreads across the sky, reflecting every little puddle from above. There will be clear skies after the pouring rain, Jooheon remembers, just as there is always the calm within every storm - and for Hoseok, he’ll gladly be caught in every wretched downpour, sprint headfirst into all of his brazen, beautiful storms.

“ _I love you_ ,” Hoseok repeats back, hoarse and trembling, cupping Jooheon’s cheeks with both palms. His hands are still shaking, but Jooheon sighs into his touch, and Hoseok dares to hold him wholly, completely. They lean into one another, foreheads propped together, cradled close as to never let go again.

The dream finds them both, intertwined, inseparable, and already fast asleep.

/

Jooheon wakes the next morning with a groaning, aching moan. A good night’s sleep will do wonders for recovery from a terrible Halloween night.

Hoseok rouses next to him, eyes still half-closed and barely flickering open as he muffles nonsensical whispers against Jooheon’s back.

“Hey.” Jooheon sits up and on bold instinct, smooths back a strand of bleached hair from Hoseok’s forehand.  

The older man blinks up at him, as if surprised. “Hey-”

“Loveyou,” Jooheon blurts out in a rush, feeling an explosion of warmth flood his cheeks. Hoseok only blinks again, completely dumbfounded.

“I love you too.” Hoseok laughs, a little stilted, but his own face is bathed in heaven’s light, soaked pink with joy, and Jooheon’s tentative giggles are soon added to the mix.

When Hoseok sits up to pull him in for a kiss, Jooheon can finally believe the sweet promise on his lips.

 

* _bonus_

“So did you like the party?” Hoseok asks long after. They’ve taken all morning to get up, to disentangle themselves from the bed sheets, to separate themselves from each other. Thankfully, their mysterious animal friends have all vanished from their various overnight lodgings. Jooheon does spot a chewed up throw pillow sticking out from under the couch though.

Jooheon glares, looking up from his phone. “No. Fuck Halloween, especially Lee Minhyuk.”

On his phone is a message from said perpetrator:

 

(^◔ᴥ◔^) _you’re welcome lovebirds <333 happy halloween as always _ (^_<)〜☆

 

Jooheon is beyond furious - but he supposes, he _might_ forgive him someday.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from maroon 5's animal. i'm sorry i had to lol the title barely reflects any of the themes of the story but i had to :)  
> anyway i hope you enjoyed reading! any and all feedback is welcome!


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